Question

What type of reflection will take place from a polished surface?

Answer 1

Hint : Light reflected from a smooth surface will return at the same angle as it hits the surface with respect to the normal from the surface. So using this we can define the type of reflection from a polished surface.

Complete step by step answer
When light is incident on a smooth surface, it will be reflected at the same angle at which it is incident on. This is known as a regular reflection.
For a reflection from a rough surface, reflected light rays scatter in all directions irrespective of the direction of the incident light. This is known as diffuse reflection. Diffuse reflection is when light hits a surface and is reflected in lots of different directions. Most of the things we see are because light from a source has reflected off it because of a rough reflection.
For e.g. if we see a tree, the light reflected from it is scattered in all directions and we observe this scattered light to view the tree. While when light is reflected from the surface of the mirror it is reflected in a direction parallel and opposite to the direction of the incident ray of light. This is the reason why the reflection from a mirror which is a polished surface is called regular reflection.
By polishing a rough surface, we get a smooth surface. This surface is used in creating all kinds of mirrors, which reflect light at the same angle with which they are incident on the surface at.

Note
Mirrors are polished on one side to reflect light regularly. We can make use of this fact to realize that regular reflections take place from polished surfaces while irregular reflections takes place from rough surfaces.